beyondgoodandevilfandomcom-20200223-history
User blog:IRISNetwork/W.W.T.A.O
We work together as one. Epilogue Go back in time and tell the kid sitting in his living room, playing his Uncle's new playstation game, that he bought on a whim, that for the next 15 years, this experience you are having right now, will define a good portion of who you are, the values that you hold, the stories that you eventually wish to tell. For 15 years you will champion this game and this world and these characters, you will champion it's right to continue, for this world to live, and for these characters stories to be told. He'd probably say 'Get out of the way, i'm taking a picure of this pig man.'. Safe and sound in it's shell Beyond Good & Evil has been a part of me for as long as I can remember, it's the game that inspired me to make games and tell stories. For the longest time I felt very isolated in my obsession for the world of BGE, it wasn't exactly Call of Duty, it wasn't what the kids in the schoolground were playing, but it didn't upset me, I got to feel like I was this games number 1 fan in the entire world. It was years before I discovered the magic of the internet, and it was years more before I discovered this game had a community of any kind... I didn't know games had 'communities'. Because of that long time growing up alongside the game without anyone else to share the experince with, I grew very protective of my love for Beyond Good and Evil, I wanted to maintain that feeling of being the number one Beyond Good and Evil fan, it might not have been neccesarily true, but believing it in my heart, and with 'obsessive' as my middle name, I was determined to prove it. The Pig I have a spiritual connection to Pey'j. My zodiac animal is the Pig... and I also like to eat Fajitas. In 2008, 5 years after my Uncle showed me BGE, he showed me the newly released 'Beyond Good & Evil 2' trailer. And then I vividly remember doing a power slide on my knees. 'Wow dem graphics!' - 13 year old me. I was convinced it was going to be the greatest game in the world, and we would hear more news in the coming weeks. Those weeks turned in to months, and those months turned in to years, it was evident BGE2 was not coming as soon as I thought it was. Still I dreamt of what that world would be like, what those characters would be doing after all this time, and that dream nested in my brain and my heart for years, one day.. That day never came, but I swore that when I grew up, I would be part of Beyond Good & Evil 2's creation, even if I had to make it myself (I was a very ambitious Kid). Most Wanted I honestly can't remember if I started the wiki first, or if I discovered the BGE forums first, but it was roughly around the same time and it was magical. Suddenely there were more people talking about this game and the mysterious, elusive sequel, it wasn't just me anymore. For the longest time you would only ever see the same 5-6 people on the forums for years between around 2010 and 2017, to me, these guys were the OG BGE fans, even though I was apparently a late comer to the communities! But I loved interacting with these guys so much every little chance I got, and it was a small, slow humble introduction to the not-so-big BGE community. There was also the DeviantArt BGEClub, and as a lover of doodling and drawing, that too was one of my BGE community hotspots. And I eventually found out about BGE Myth... the folks in charge of that just blow everyone out of the water in terms of dedication to the BGE aesthetic, posting the latest news (even to this day), and maintaining an active community, I so wish I spoke French, Google Translate was not enough for me to get consistently involved with their community. I also discovered the Darkroom, or 'The Most Wanted' list, which is the leadboard Ubisoft had up for Beyond Good and Evil so people could track their best times and their progress through the use of internet codes, they could do a cool little ARG game in which you had to hack in to the Hyllian news website, and ultimately you would get a code for the game itself to unlock the disc game. After already completing the game 20+ times and knowing the location of every collectible like the back of my hand, I figured I had a shot at being in the top 10 in the leaderboard. Over the course of maybe a month I went from top 10 to 2nd place, the only guy above me had completed the game and everything in it, in 1 hour! I swear to this day, that hax were used, but maybe I was being salty, as I recently rediscovered the speedrunning scene now that the Darkroom is gone, and there are some crazy glitches you can do to skip cutscenes and stuff.. but no one has 100 percented the game anywhere near 1 hour.. what a filthy cheater. Anyway, since the darkroom went down, I have always maintained I was the Darkroom's Most Wanted because I am an extremely petty person. Good Intentions I've always been really interested and involved and... i'm going to use that word again... 'obsessed', in the lore of all kinds of games and worlds, and when I discovered Wiki's, I found they were such a great and convenient way to just lose myself in the history and stories and characters and nitty gritty details of these worlds, page by page, for hours. Whether it be Elder Scrolls, Lord of the Rings, Mass Effect, Star Wars... So that's when I began this BGE Wiki... now, confession time, there was a BGE Wiki before this one, but I was upset with just how underutilised it was, it had lots of the page all set up, but it hadn't been looked at for months or years, and had no visuals to speak of. I could have tried to help build up that wiki, or reached out to the Admin, but being the tenacious teen that I was (on the internet that is, I was totally shy and quiet in real life) I decided 'I'm going to create my own BGE Wiki, and it's going to be the greatest BGE Wiki, cause i'm the number one BGE fan!'.. And so I started "beyondgoodandevil.wik... oh, that URL is taken by that other wiki... nooo!" I was devestated, but I instead I used this as an oppurtunity to try and give my wiki more magic, and using my love of roleplaying in games, I created the 'IRIS Network' Wiki, themed as the in-world IRIS Network database, I was the Cheif, and you were all my agents, and that was so cool to teenaged me. The wiki fortunately did get bigger and better, with the help of the community and especially with the assistance of my enlisted Admin ZyLogic, who helped immensly! There had been one or two other BGE wikis attempting to pop up, but because of my persistance on being the number one, I tried to fight back those wikis, and make sure everyone was coming to mine. I don't think I was doing it in a nasty way, but it wasn't very nice, I was just so protective of my own personal passion for the game, I almost couldn't bring myself to believe anybody loved it as much as I do. We soon merged with the precursor BGE Wiki and claimed 'beyondgodandevil.wikia.com' for our own! I discovered that the admin ZyLogic was somebody who had created their own BGE Wiki in the past, but I had tried to resist, and make sure my wiki was the true wiki. Instead of ZyLogic persisting with their own wiki, against mine, like I had done years ago, they joined this one, and helped to make it so much better than it was. They became an admin and I discovered that I didn't have to be alone in my love for BGE, I didn't have to be so protective of this feeling of being the number one fan in the world. I learned a valuable lesson. The road to the slaughterhouses is paved with good intentions. Growing Up Now years later, the dream of BGE2 began to die a little, I left School and had to begin college, and then Uni, and then work, and as the years (and E3's, staying up and desperatly hoping for a sign) went by, so did my hopes for the sequel, and I also slowly got less and less time to be involved in the community and maintain this Wiki. Eventually accepting that Beyond Good & Evil will always remain an untouched gem of videogaming. ...and then... It was finally officially announced last year Motherf*****! I sort of knew in my heart just what I was watching when I saw Zhou Yuzhu the crime pig, but I didn't accept it until I finally heard that music at the end of the trailer. When I first heard Knox say 'That's swiss f***ing chocolate, Pig!' I let out a wierd mix of a laugh and a cry of joy, it wasn't pretty, my friends made fun of me. It was like 15 years of built up anticipation was pierced by this moment that I could never have predicted belonging in BGE. I love that f***cking Monkey. But talk about timing, if BGE2 had been announced a year or 2 earlier, I would have had all the time in the world to do nothing but play on the BGE forums and this Wiki all day, but unfortunately Work and other Life aspirations have left me otherwise strapped for time. I am currently an Artist at an Indie studio, and I work on writing and cartoon pitches. I'd love to ultimately tell stories in almost any... and if I can... every, medium! Games, Film's, TV, you name it! But anyway, I still did my best to join in the hype, becoming a Space Monkey of course! I was torn between loving the ambition and concept of this game and the fact that it was BGE2 LITERALLY RIGHT IN FRONT ME AFTER ALL THESE YEARS, and the fact that it was almost nothing like BGE1. I had always imagined the sequel to be a masterfully crafted single player experience like the first one, following the continuing adventures of Jade, Pey'J, Double H and the gang.. that was the dream that had been nested in my heart for all these years. Still, I support the direction for the game 110% percent and I couldn't have been more excited, it was imposssible! And then something happened which got me... even more excited. The Initiative I am absoluteley honoured and starstruck to announce that I am a part of the Iris Network Initiative! (What a coincidence about the names, huh?) Ubisoft got in touch with me and a handful of other community leaders to become part of a secret club Beyond Good and Evil club! Which means I have no secrets to tell you all I swear so don't even ask. As part of the Space Monkeys, my childhood dream to be a part of the creation of BGE2 would have come true anyway, it's such a great program, but as an INI... For the first time in my life, I met face to face with other people who have been in the exact same situation as me all their life.. growing up with BGE, with no one to share that passion with. I really can't talk about anything i've experienced over the past few months, perhaps in the future i'll be able to, but it's been the most magical time of my life. Kind of like a dream that you feel really meloncholy to wake up from. It has been unexplainable, and my newfound Beyond Good & Evil family have made this 15 year long wait, all worth it. It's no longer just me and my passion for Beyond Good and Evil. We work together as one. Carlson and Peeters, Page 823 Oh, and also I'm going to E3, so.. twitter.com/_CthuLuke Category:Blog posts